


Cytopathy

by TedizStalker



Category: Bx: Execute (OFF Fangame)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Cecilma, Ponderings on what happens from one cutscene to the next, tw; blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26911975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TedizStalker/pseuds/TedizStalker
Summary: Ghost said that nobody will be left behind. That he will not leave Huaso behind.And Huaso believes it.But it's hard to find the will to hold on when his body is in shock and in pain that he cannot move.And even if he wanted to let go...Cytopathic reanimation will deny him the right to move on.
Relationships: Ghost Batter/Huaso
Kudos: 8





	Cytopathy

**Author's Note:**

> A spontaneous angst/pondering/fluff fict. Enjoy.

“…There you are. It’ll be okay, I swear.”

Huaso’s ears were ringing, but he caught Ghost’s words above the din. He could feel pain. A lot of pain. But at the same time he couldn’t move. There is blood everywhere, or so it smells and feels like it.  
Above the agony, he could feel soft hands supporting him from under. But it made the damaged nerves in his spine shoot out signals of pain to every corner of his body.

“…Ghost, ya can get me down. I’m fine… I swear, I’m good, Ghost. Put me down, will ya?”

After taking a step away from the wrecked tram that fell off the overhead rails, the purifier carefully puts him down onto the hard tiled ground. His cap obscured his hollowed eyes, and quite possibly more.

“Thank ya.” Huaso grunts, blindly glancing up at him, “Now go on ahead. Don’ worry about me. It’ll be a matter of hours but at this time…”

“No you fucking aren’t! I’m not leaving you behind!” Ghost starts, typical of his outburst, but lacking the fury and volume his tone would normally have, “No one will be left behind, Huaso, I don’t want you to die!”

If Huaso didn’t know better, Ghost was straining real hard to prevent the rain from falling.

“I’m fine. I swear that I am, jus’ lemme show ya…”  
Try as the harbringer might, he couldn’t raise an arm like he wanted. No doubt his spine is beyond fucked if this motor impairment was stronger than palsy. “Ugh, I can’t move. Dagnammit…”

Sensing this distress, Ghost slowly drops to the floor, sitting up and still looking the wounded Elsen over. “Do you want me to move closer to you?”

“Nah.” Huaso sighs, still keeping his blind gaze fixed in the direction where he can pick up on the other’s echoes, “I just wanted to reach yer face.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll try to find something to heal you. Just hang on.”

Seeing his boyfriend. Covered in foul smelling blood. Unable to move. This is almost disheartening for the usually strong purifier. Normally, Huaso would be sturdier than this, but perhaps a fall within a transport is not something he can deploy a parachute in. Ghost knew about the harbringer’s disdain of being an unwilling survivalist, hated his self-preservation with a passion. Just as much as Ghost himself hated being around, seeing his reflection in the mirror.  
Ghost takes hold of one of the calcified hands, which surprisingly didn’t crack from the impact and expose weak points. Huaso really needs his claws right now.

“Don’ worry ‘bout that. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. Not like I ever did, as much as I wanted to.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

The determined tone in Ghost’s voice arrests the harbringer’s attention. It was as though he could finally take his word for it with sincerity. Huaso gives a weak smile.

“…If ya say so. You’re so considerate.” Huaso begins, taking a sigh and shuddering from the pain running from his spine again. If he had to guess, the damaged nerves lie about right between the shoulder blades. “Though is it worth it? Abundance will go on longer. Many more lives will be killed by ‘im. Would you lose me, or them?”

Ghost gently puts the held hand back down, moving a fist to quickly rub at his eyes.

“This is no time for philosophy, fucker. I’m going to fetch out a special healing item.” because he sure as Hell knows that using a Remedy will only have the adverse effects on the bringer of pestilence, “No one will be left behind, I promise.”

~~

Huaso listens with everything he has as Ghost leaves the room, watching the echoes drift away. He lets his head rest against the floor.

It hurts. It hurts like Hell, but so far it only feels like that for the skull. Judging from how damp he feels, there’s blood on the back of his head, all over the front of his work shirt and overalls, and a good portion of it all over his face. That last bit was from the valve on the left goggle lens bursting open and ejecting the contents upon impact, but Ghost closed it up before leaving so that he isn’t left bleeding profoundly from his eye socket alone. He’s pleased with Omega’s handiwork; the lens didn’t break, and it wouldn’t be bleeding beads from them. If there’s anywhere else that Huaso’s bleeding, it will not be long before the warning headache will have his frontal lobe in a painful death grip.

If he could move, he would be eating a piece of meat right now to starve it off. But he can’t. He closes his eyes, listening to the sounds, and watching the flicker of echoes around him.

He could already hear Ghost punching a Von Gacy to paste a few rooms away.

~~

An hour passes.

Huaso awakes with a gasp, feeling his head throb. Like all the weight of a semi-truck’s wheel ran over it, and his skull still held it together, if splintering over the top.

Cytopathic reanimation is a bitch, and he hates it. There’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t have it in him to move and eat. But he must; he wouldn’t want Ghost to come back to a stuck zombie snarling at him.

Ghost promised that he won’t leave him behind, and Huaso believes it.

So he tells himself to hang on a little longer.

~~

It’s dark! But he can see the echoes in a sharper contrast.

Two strong ghouls, likely Von Gacy, have entered the room. At first they entered, thinking they had found an easy meal. But as one puts their head down to sniff the blood, the horrid stench finally gets their attention.

This Elsen is not edible.

The other stepped too close to the wounded bringer’s head.

A bright light echoes to his left, and Huaso let out a snarl. He turns and bites into the ankle above the hoof.

The bitten ghoul lets out a shriek, startling both its companion and the zombie. The former bolted, but Huaso only bit down more, drawing blood. It’s not ideal, but this was a morsel of what he can sink his teeth into. An abrupt kick to his jaw does make him yank away with a piece of fur, flesh, and maybe a portion of muscle fibre. The usually formidable ghoul limps away with a whine, leaving a fresh trail of blood.

In empty mode, all Huaso can do is focus on the echoes for more opportunistic snack attacks, and chew on what he has in his mouth now.

~~

_Something is wrong._

_Something has always been wrong since they met_ him _in the filtration system. And yet_ he’s _taken charge as their ‘leader.’_

 _But_ he’s _a silly old fool playing video games and giving out orders._

_Orders that mean nothing to a compulsive file hopper._

_Huaso has already confided in Flo that he doesn’t trust the guy. So why is the doctor in question following his direction? Ghost, he could understand, seeing as Borbo came to him, talking about the situation that has grown out of hand._ _  
_ _But why Flo?_ _  
_ _Why Reinzi?_

_Borbo would never be able to tell this soured old harbringer what to do!_

_He will take orders from Reinzi._

_He will even take orders from Flo._

_But he_ will not _be listening to Borbo directly. That idiot is the last person in existence to tell him what to do, and how to do it._

_Dedan from his home file has failed him as an authority figure worth listening to. As did Enoch, failing to spot the disease in the sea of sugar. So it was from this point on that Huaso would become his own boss. His own go-to when he needed directions._

_But if_ **_anyone_ ** _has authority over his very essence, it would be the egg man beyond the 4th wall, beyond the curtains of limited reality. It will be the respectable madlad known as Cecilma._

_Not Borbo._

~~

Once again, Huaso awakes with a quiet gasp. And another pounding headache.

Pain.

Insurmountable pain. It continues to wreak his whole body. And it’s worse than before.

Can someone find him, pick him up, and throw him into the nearest furnace? Please?

The sooner his body rots away once all the pain ceases, the better.

Why can’t he just have cytopathy instead of cytopathic reanimation in a cerebral cobweb full of dead neurons?

Where is Ghost? He said nobody would be left behind.

So once more, Huaso tells himself to hang in there.

~~

A smell hits him, rousing him from another painful nap, and it beckons at his corrode. If he could sit up, he would.

It smells like mushrooms.

And at that mental realization, he could see echoes approaching the room.

The purifier doesn’t need legs, or shoes, to make the walls bounce off the sounds to him. He just _knows._

“Ghost, what is that smell?” Huaso asks, blinking. He’s got the sticky eyelids, in a murk of blood. Not a good combination. “Seems familiar.”

“I got this weird ass potion. Wonder if it will work on you.”

Ghost sits down as he digs it out of his inventory. Huaso doesn’t seem much worse for wear, but it also smells like he got a good mauling somewhere, above the stench of his own blood, now dry.

“I got nothin’ to lose. Go on.”

“Okay. Open your mouth.”

Obliging, Huaso does so as soon as he feels the other is close enough. As the potion is poured in, he realizes this tasted better than it smells. As it hits his stomach, the sensation of relief spreads out, mending his broken spine.

“Holy shit, it worked! Thank goodness, I went through a bit to get this!”

As soon as the last of the damage knitted itself back together, Huaso sits up.

“Ya went? Tell me.”

~~

“And that’s pretty much it.”

Ghost fought through a lot of spectres and ghouls, even some balloon Burnts, to find that one vending machine that had this weird potion. Oh, and a Pastel Burnt named Clyde. Who had quite an attitude problem. Much like Ghost himself. Huaso was amazed as he listened the whole time.

“Sounds like a lot of work. I’m glad ya pulled all of that for me.”

“I told you I’m not leaving you behind. I swore that to you, remember?” Ghost asks with a smile from where he remains seated, tail twitching now and then.

Huaso nods.

“I sure do. Still remember how we met?”

~~

“And to think it was only a troop of common spectres…” Ghost recalls, smiling fondly at the memories. Except for what happened _after_ the slab of metal fell on him, where he forgot to phase and had his neck stuck in between.

“Despite t’ bad first impressions, we sure became good friends.” Huaso remarks.

Seeing Ghost smile… It makes him smile, too.

“Do you have a piece of meat, Huaso?” the purifier asks.

Ah yes. Lunch time.  
Huaso looks through his inventory, quietly relieved that nothing of it was tainted by his blood. Sure, Ghost is immune to whatever his being can throw at him; from toxic claws, to poisonous blood, to even a good old romp. But old habits die hard, and he doesn’t particularly enjoy sharing tainted food.

There it is! He pulls out two cleanly wrapped pieces of cooked meat.

“Of course I have! Let’s share!”

After receiving his share and unwrapping it, Ghost looks the piece of meat over. “Now this looks good! Thanks for the grub!”

Huaso smiles warmly. “Y’ welcome, Ghost.”

Taking their first bite, echoes told the harbringer that the soft worm is glancing around.

“Now I think this looks like a dead end. Think you can open a portal?”

Huaso watches as Ghost takes a bite and chews on it happily.

“Sure, Ghost.”


End file.
